Follow Us

WaPo Gets Prematurely Personal

In an effort to make its unbearably slow and unnavigable website more user-friendly, washingtonpost.com has launched “Personal Post.” The new feature aggregates readers’ favorite WaPo writers and blogs into one page that automatically updates throughout the day.

How it works

Personal Post users can either log in with their washingtonpost.com account or pick one of three ready-made templates to browse: “Know It All” (general news), “Washington Life” (D.C. social scene) and “National Pulse” (wonky government news). But, as is often the case with WaPo’s sad site, a click of each individual template currently renders the same story results. A spokeswoman tells FBDC she has “reached out to the WaPo Labs team to see if this is a technical issue.” UPDATE: WaPo‘s PR department tells us the issue has been resolved.

If a user opts instead to create a personal template (which, is apparently the way to go for the time being), a list of today’s stories appears with a headline and excerpt from each story to sift through. If a user doesn’t like a particular story, he can click a red “x” by the headline that removes. Once that’s gone, a box appears informing the user he can remove topics as a whole, such as “Crime” or “DC Sports Bog.”

Next up: Fun with icons! Each headline is also an icon for users to share stories on Facebook, Google Plus and Twitter. According to the “Help” section of Personal Post, a “more” button is yet to come, which users will be able to click to receive updates of similar WaPo stories on their templates.

Why the launch of Personal Post didn’t include this feature already is anyone’s guess. But all in all, we give them credit for a feature that could (crossing our fingers) potentially cut down on the online rage that surges when visiting the wilds of their site.